LGBT Christians

Listen to a BTWN Podcast discussion with the author concerning this blog – HERE

The crazy train driving conservative evangelicals to normalize sexual perversion keeps chugging along down the track. While it may sound like a think-tank associated with the United Methodists, or the PCUSA or even the Unitarians, The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender insists they are conservative evangelicals. They are even endorsed by such luminaries as Francis Chan, Matt Chandler, and Karen Swallow Prior.

The Center will hold a conference in July called Revoice hosted by Memorial Presbyterian Church that is a member of the more conservative PCA. The working purpose statement of the conference is,

Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex attracted, and other LGBT Christians so they can experience the life-giving character of the historic Christian tradition.

Keynote speakers will include Eve Tushnet, lesbian Catholic author, and Nate Collins, who describes himself as a same-sex attracted/gay married man. Breakout sessions will cover a range of topics like “Possibility Models in Queer Theory and Literature: An Adventure,” “Sexual Minorities & Ministry,” “How to Become Churches Where LGBT+ People Can Find Family,” and a panel discussion on “The Joys and Challenges of Mixed-Orientation Marriage.”

The leadership with the Center of Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, honestly believe they are helping the Christian Church work through all the issues of homosexuality in our society. There is lots of discussion about journeying together, community, conversations, and experience. The reality, however, is that they have given into the world and are leading the Church into gross compromise with sinful perversion.

“Sexual Minorities” and the World

First, they categorize homosexuals as a “sexual minority.” Rather than sinners who need to repent from their sin, turn to Christ in faith, and into a life of sanctification that will orient their attraction to godly desires, gays are likened as an unreached people group, a mission field like say Eskimos or the Appalachian Hill Billy people. They have their own unique cultural values that Christians must familiarize themselves with and accommodate. That is in spite of the fact that LGBT culture is saturated with pornographic imagery, sexual exploitation, and other bizarre fetishes.

Now. Let me pause here a moment, because already there are people who just read my last sentence about pornographic imagery, exploitation, and fetishes, and are angry for me writing that. Readers are saying to themselves, “you ridiculous hater, you are being extremely hyperbolic and are not serious about discussing this issue. I know wonderful gay people who are some of the most morally pure individuals I’ve ever met. That stuff you see in gay pride parades is the extreme fringe and doesn’t represent reality.” All I can say in return is bless your sweet gullible, pollyannishly naive heart.

The defining characteristic of the LGBT community is the expression of their sexuality that is a marked deviation from natural, God ordained sexual desire and expression between a man and a woman. That deviant expression permeates the entire LGBT existence and they insist on telling everyone about it down to children in grade school.

If one does not believe me, research what I am asserting. For instance, pay attention to gay pride month that happens every June. Here in LA, there will be the World Naked Bike Ride through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. NAKED! You know, totally nude, no clothes. And I mean full frontal naked, both men and women! In public! I’d link you to their website, but I’m ashamed to do so because of imagery. The event is sanctioned by the city, so the police cannot arrest anyone for public indecent exposure. In fact, the advertisement for the event warns participants not to do anything indecent! [Oh. By the way, a commenter noted that the World Naked Bike Ride is a goofy hippy thing protesting “Big Oil” and has nothing to do with homosexuals and gay pride. Yes. I was aware of that. I will just note that there is a reason why they hold it in June in conjunction with gay pride month. That’s because there is a more ready group of sexual exhibitionists willing to take off their clothes in public during that month. Just search LA Weekly and World Naked Bike Ride or their website to see what I mean].

If you have the intestinal fortitude, do a search for Zombietime Folsom Street Fair. You don’t even have to read the report, just glance over the warning page he has set up before you even get the report. If you want something a bit more tame, just search RuPaul’s Drag Con. Neither one of those events represent a fringe element but are events celebrated by the world and among the majority within the LGBT community.

The Passions of Inordinate Affections

Secondly, the folks at the Center do not treat same-sex attraction and homosexual passion as the inordinate affections and evil desires that it is. Instead of calling them to repent and forsake their sin, the Revoice conference empowers and encourages so-called LGBT Christians.

At their website, The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender has a doctrinal statement. At first glance, the statement is website orthodox, meaning it looks and sounds biblical. However, they also post six clarifying statements on marriage, sexuality, and gender. The fourth statement is extremely problematic,

4. Simply experiencing attraction to the same sex (or being gay) is not in itself a morally culpable sin.

God would disagree with that statement. The tenth command says, “You shall not covet…” Coveting is sinful desires or attractions that are forbidden. Jesus’s own words in Matthew 5:28 also contradict the statement for if a man is morally culpable of adultery by lusting after another woman not his wife, so too any person who is same sex attracted.

I can already hear someone object, “But Fred, we’re talking about a man’s sexual orientation. A man can be same sex attracted AND not lust after another man, just like you are opposite sex attracted AND not lust after another woman.” The difference, however, is that attraction to people of the opposite sex is a normal, God ordained desire. Attraction to people of the same sex is not. The Bible describes those desires as inordinate (Colossians 3:5) or vile (Romans 1:26). They are not merely forbidden and likened unto committing adultery, but God considers them an abomination all their own.

So-Called LGBT Christians

Even more problematic is how the Revoice conference identifies Christian with LGBT lifestyles. Their goal is to support and empower and encourage LGBT Christians as if the LGBT descriptor cannot be separated from Christians. One who was once immersed in a homosexual orientation and desire cannot just be a Christian now, but must be a LGBT Christian.

Think about that for a moment and do a thought experiment. Go back to the Revoice Conference website and replace LGBT with “polyamorous” in the title of all those workshops and break out sessions. (BTW, polyamory can also be included with that “+” at the end of the LGBT, but we’ll lay that aside a moment). So now you have a workshop called “Journey to Embrace: A conversation on empowering the church to embrace the polyamorous community in fresh ways” or “Building justice bridges: How a missiological approach shifts our posture and reaches polyamorous people.” I take it you see the abject absurdity with such a possibility. Or switch LGBT out with any addiction or sinful passion, Porn Attracted Christians, or Child Attracted Christians or Racialist Christians.

Let’s go down to the next level and evaluate the “B” and “T” in LGBT. The “B” means a person is bisexual, meaning the guy is either sexually attracted to men or women. He goes both ways, as it is described in the worldly vernacular. Are the people seriously suggesting that there are “bisexual” Christians who need to be empowered and encouraged? What about the “T”? That’s transgender, which means a guy is delusional and thinks he is a gal, for instance.

The popular fad today is for parents to dress up their young trans boys or girls in the clothes of the opposite sex. So say a boy, who is like 8 or 9 and feels like a girl, dresses up as a Disney princesses for Halloween or they’ll do girlie things like wearing make-up and paint their nails. Normal people in our society who would call it child abuse, are shamed into silence for saying the obvious, it’s child abuse. But I take it that the Revoice folks believe Christians can be transgender and should be empowered and normal people who say dressing your child like a drag queen is sexual child abuse are not making their churches a place for LGBT Christians to find family. [see HERE as well].

Does Jesus Really Save?

According to Scripture, the only identification a Christian will have is with Christ. Not their former sinful proclivities. After highlighting a number of gross sins, including same sex desire, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:11 “…but such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” A Christian is not a LGBT Christian, any more than he or she is a fornicating Christian, or a drunkard Christian, or an idolater Christian. I am left wondering if the people behind the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender and those speakers scheduled for the Revoice conference truly believe those words.

When we say Jesus saves, do we truly mean it? Do we believe that salvation is more than just fire insurance? When I say Jesus saves, I believe he saves completely, including from any sinful desires. I no longer have to be identified with those sinful desires and that old man, as Romans 5 and 6 tells me. I now identify with Christ alone.

True empowerment is not the creation of a safe place within a church who welcomes gays and bisexuals. If we wish to genuinely empower gay people, we do so with the proclamation of a Gospel. A Gospel that does not leave them comfortable in their sin. A Gospel that not only calls sinners to repent entirely from past orientations, but also delivers them from those evil desires that once consumed them.

I am the founding and current Chairman of The Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender. I don’t have the time to correct all the inaccuracies of this blog. But The Center is not the sponsor or organizer of Revoice. And yes, Dr. Preston Sprinkle will be a speaker.

– I am the founding and current Chairman of The Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender. –

Okay. I appreciate that information. If you think that I am being unfair in my identification of who is involved with what at your organization, I can only go by your website information. For example, here, https://www.centerforfaith.com/about/our-leadership. If YOU are saying you are the one who is the founder and providing leadership for your group, that needs to be made clear. Preston is showcased throughout the website, his books are highlighted and he is the main face we see on the promotional material.

– I don’t have the time to correct all the inaccuracies of this blog.-

I would love for you to correct the inaccuracies of this blog. Please, by all means. So far, however, my concerns and criticisms have only been vindicated by the way folks associated with your group and who are active participants in Revoice, have responded to initial criticism from a number of sources equally troubled by what we are all seeing.

– But The Center is not the sponsor or organizer of Revoice. And yes, Dr. Preston Sprinkle will be a speaker.-

Are you saying you guys have no direct involvement with Revoice? Just so happens to be that Preston is speaking? On the website, the conference site is linked and the words, “Join Us” and takes you to a page specifically to the Revoice page. Additionally, it is not just Preston speaking, but Nate Collins, Laurie Kreig, Greg Coles, Bill Henson, and Pieter Valk are also speaking and presenting and they are all listed on your leadership team page, see my previous link above. How exactly are they involved or not involved?

[…] Fred Butler blogged about it yesterday, and it’ll save me some work if you read his assessment of the actual conference itself. (You may need a translator for the cornpone-and-pot-likker dialect he slips into occasionally, but the cardinal points he makes are unassailable.) […]

No person is born gay. We have only gay and lesbian-identified persons. There is no gay gene. There is no credible science that proves that some people are born gay. The identical twins study verifies this fact. The Bible speaks against homosexuality. And people are either born male or female. No one is trans. We have a lot of deceived people in this world including a growing group of Christians. Heaven help us.

Just as there is no such thing as “gay Christians” or “whore Christians” etc., there’s no such thing as “gay people”—rather, men and women have and do “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” and they have plenty of supporters.

Unfortunately, God’s Word is not taught, not in the so called liberal left or the so called orthodox right of professing Christendom.

The liberal left generally ignore and or deny the fact that we, “died to sin” with Christ, and, among other things, redefine sin to justify their “theology” and thus, encourage believers in sin. Example, progressive theology in general basically teaches, “Being gay in a loving, committed same sex relationship is not a sin because Paul wasn’t referring to those who are born gay.” The orthodox right generally ignore and or deny the fact that we, “died to the Law” with Christ, and, among other things, redefine the Law to justify their “theology” and thus, encourage believers as under the Law. Example, reformed theology in general basically teaches, “While believers are not under the Law anymore as a covenant of works, they’re still under it as a rule of life.” It’s two sides of the same coin and both define believers as “in the flesh.” The left leaves them comfortable in sin and the right leaves them comfortable under the Law which is the strength of sin. Such man made doctrines, including those they rest upon, not only have no basis in God’s Word, they are contrary to God’s Word, specifically the Gospel message of the Cross.

Many Christians talk about abused Bible verses, it’s clear the most abused are Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19, the abuse of those is the foundation for the abuse of all others. Clearly, to deliberately add to and or take from God’s Word is the epitome of lawlessness.

“Evil doctrine is not discerned by our reasoning powers (which false doctrine always enlists on its side), and though its malignant character may not be perceived at first, a God-fearing soul refuses it, because it is not “as it is written” — “not after Christ.” (Col. 2:8.)H. H. Snell